


Never Alone

by kaeorin



Series: Loki's Lullabies [152]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Babies, Comfort, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Family, Fluff, Loki (Marvel) Feels, POV Loki (Marvel), Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-21
Updated: 2020-09-21
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:07:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26572693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaeorin/pseuds/kaeorin
Summary: Loki watches you with your child, and he can’t get over the way it makes him feel. (Pregnancy/Parenthood in this fic--be aware, please.)
Relationships: Loki (Marvel)/Reader
Series: Loki's Lullabies [152]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1678240
Comments: 15
Kudos: 174





	Never Alone

**Author's Note:**

> This is a "sequel" of sorts to [Together](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23902888) and [As One](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25435942), but you don't need to read them to understand this one. The reader is a cis female in this one? Loki does refer to them as a mother a few times in his head. If that's something that throws you out of a fic, I'm really sorry and I swear that next week's lullaby will NOT be gender-specific.

Growing up where he did, and how, Loki had never put much stock in the idea of miracles. 

He had what he needed, most of the time, and whenever Asgard could not provide something else that he needed, it made sure to crush him under a thousand other weights to distract him from whatever was missing. There were no miracles to put him on the throne instead of his war-hungry brother. There were no miracles to save him when everything he thought he’d known began to crumble in around him. For the briefest of moments there after he let himself drop off of the Bifrost, he thought maybe he might be rescued by a miracle, or else find his miraculous peace in a permanent sleep, but...well, he’d very quickly realized how very wrong he was. After that, he was far too deep in the mire of torture and misery to even remember what the word “miracle” meant anymore.

But now here he was. With you. And _his son._ It seemed unthinkable. Sometimes in the depths of the night, he had dreams in which every aspect of the last few years were all a trick, a ploy by the mad titan to make his reality—the pain and hopelessness—all the more keen. He had nightmares where he awakened in that place and saw horrible things: your body, shattered and destroyed, an empty husk without any sign of the life that filled your eyes in his waking hours. Your son, alone behind an invisible wall that Loki could not break through no matter how desperately the baby wailed. And blood. Endless blood. Blood so thick and hot and copious that he thought he’d drown in it.

Sometimes he howled himself awake. When he did, he always woke you too, and you only ever held him and whispered sweet things to him and promised him that he was safe. That all three of you were safe.

Tonight, there were no nightmares, but neither was there sleep. You’d tried valiantly to stay awake with him, but he’d watched fondly as sleepiness stole across your features. You were every miracle he’d ever needed. In the quiet darkness like this, he couldn’t tear his eyes away from you. In your eyes, your face, your body, he saw everything that he thought he’d never have. He saw how shyly you’d reached out to him for the first time—shy, but endlessly brave. You did not let the certainty that he’d push you away keep you from reaching out anyway. He saw the smile you gave him the first time he relented and took your hand, or the first time he’d slipped his arm around your shoulder to try to ward off Thor’s attention. He saw the way your face twisted when you were thinking, the way your brow furrowed when you were working. The curve of your lips here in the darkness allowed him to hear the quiet, happy laugh you made whenever he distracted you from something you were working on.

He saw the way you’d placed yourself nervously beside him on the sofa that afternoon. He saw your fingers twisting around themselves as you tried to find the words. He saw the struggle in your face, the fear but also the hope as you finally told him that you were pregnant with his child. And that you _wanted_ it. And that you wanted it even if he didn’t. And he saw how strong you were throughout the ordeal of pregnancy, how you’d weathered every last storm that his tiny child had put you through, brilliant and strong and graceful even as cruel doubts made you think you weren’t good enough. 

He saw how hard you fought when it was time to bring that child into the world. It wasn’t easy. He’d been a wreck. He’d done this to you, after all, and when pain rippled through you and stole your breath, maybe he regretted every last thing he’d ever done to harm you. But that spark in your eyes did not die out. He watched you struggle to meet your child, and he held your hand the entire time. You teased him—and often—about how he was a god, but in those early hours of the morning, he had never seen anyone or anything half as godlike as you. At the end, when you were finally permitted to rest back against the pillows and the nurses placed that child in your arms, it was like he was seeing you for the first time.

And he wasn’t subtle. When you noticed that his eyes were fixed on you, you reached up with one hand to touch your hair, your face, like you wanted to hide from him, and you tried to crack a joke about your appearance, but he wouldn’t hear a word of it. He slanted his lips over yours and your son— _his son_ —gurgled fussily in your arms.

Tonight, you were blessedly far-removed from that hospital room. Slowly but surely, and assisted by as many Asgardian incantations as Loki could remember, your body was healing. You slept soundly in his arms, as you always did and always had. Maybe someday he’d stop marveling at that. Maybe he’d accept the way you trusted him enough to let yourself be so utterly vulnerable and helpless at the mercy of the man who was once one of Earth’s fiercest enemies. But he wasn’t there yet. Every night when you cuddled closer to him beneath the covers and snored softly beside him, it was like the most precious gift you could possibly give him.

As if on cue, there came a quiet grunting from the bassinet near the bed. Already Loki knew that sound by heart. It was the sound of his son waking up and crying out for his parents. He lowered his head to kiss your shoulder, but then slipped out of bed before the cries could wake you. 

Holding his son still took his breath away. This tiny helpless creature depended on him for everything, and the pureness of that made him determined to provide it. In the beginning, he wasn’t sure about being a father. Odin was...well, he left a lot to be desired. Before you told him the news, he was pretty sure he’d never have children of his own, lest he turn out like the bastard king. As soon as he knew that you were pregnant, things shifted. He felt himself yearning, striving to be better for this child than anyone else had ever been for him. And he was rewarded for it every time his son smiled at him. He rocked him gently, singing a quiet lullaby under his breath, but the baby would not be soothed. 

“Hush now, little one.” Loki did his best to shush him, adjusted the way he held him to try to make him more comfortable. “You’ve got to be quiet, or you’ll wake your mama. She doesn’t get enough sleep as it is.”

“Is he hungry?” It was your voice, of course, sleep-rough and groggy, but Loki watched as you pulled yourself up into a sitting position. Mother-goddess. Was there anything that you would not do for this child? You stifled a yawn and rubbed your eyes, filling Loki with a honeyed warmth that made him want to take you into his arms. When it came to you, he had nothing left to doubt, but it was still hard to accept that he was ever deserving of a happiness like this. “Here, I can take him now.”

It took a little bit of repositioning, but he latched on soon enough, and his cries quieted as you nursed him. Loki was enchanted, as he often was. Somewhere deep inside him, there was a small, base part of him that thrilled to watch the way you cared for his son. Loki was the child who’d grown up in the shadows of his brother. The boy who sought, again and again, to win the affection of his father, the respect of his people. The man who was cast aside. It did him good to watch you with your son, the way you gazed at him with open adoration and never hesitated to put everything to the side when he needed you.

You still didn’t know what it did to him. You had no idea of the depths of his devotion, or how they only ever grew deeper and deeper as the days went on. He sat down on the edge of the bed and watched you watch the baby in your arms. His heart swelled. Love threatened to choke him. Not for the first time since taking the plunge and letting you get close to him, Loki was speechless.

After a while, you looked up to smile at him in the darkness. “I’ve got him. You can sleep. You must be exhausted.” 

But he shook his head. How could he allow himself to sleep while you sat there, resplendent and perfect in the moonlight? While you cradled the tiny life that you’d created together and gazed down at him with purest love shining in your eyes? He’d forego sleep for the rest of his life, if it meant he never had to tear his eyes away from you again. 

Allspeak gave him the ability to speak every last human language, not to mention the multitudes of others, and yet he did not have the words to tell you what this meant to him. He had to swallow hard as he reached out to cover one of your hands with his. “You are...” His voice sounded uncharacteristically ragged in the darkness of the night, but he knew, better than he knew his own name, that you would not tease him for it. He watched the child’s eyelids grow heavy, watched them flutter closed once he’d taken his fill of milk, watched him fall back into a perfect sleep there in his mother’s arms. Something swelled up in his chest, then, and he knew that he had to be gaping at you. “...beautiful.”

He heard you laugh quietly, almost-but-not-quite in disbelief. He was doing his best to do away with that sort of thing, that uncertainty of yours. Midgardians had such funny ways of thinking about beauty, like it came only from the physical. Like you couldn’t be beautiful and perfect in your oldest pair of pyjamas, with bedhead and lines from your pillow still pressed into your cheeks. He wanted to show you what you were to him, but even now, after everything, you were still so shy. 

At least tonight, you did not deflect his words with self-deprecation. Loki rose to his feet and then stooped a bit to take his son from you, and you did him the honor of letting him. He placed the infant gently back down into the bassinet but then turned towards you once more. 

Your body was still not ready for lovemaking, he knew, but he couldn’t shake this hunger. There were secret places on your skin, soft hidden places, that craved the touch of his lips. Maybe you weren’t ready for the heat of his desire, but he could certainly share with you the warmth of his love. He took you into his arms and slanted his lips over yours.

This was good.


End file.
